Sakura in Wonderland
by EireannisInnocent
Summary: SakuxMulti AU Possible OOCness: "What do you mean he kicked out and exiled his own family member for coming near his miterashi dango? That's ridiculuous!" "Ah, but it's true...he did exactly that, then he got a restraining order for his food from then on"
1. Chapter 1

Sakura in Wonderland

**Chapter I: The Intro**

I am the first 23 year old to have graduated from one of the top schools in the world _with a doctorate's degree_; that's all you need to be to draw attention, attention I don't need or want. I have green eyes and _pink_ hair; definitely an odd combination, which draws the eye of anyone near, which I don't want it to. I am extremely successful in my chosen field of work, medicine, and therefore because of my "uniqueness" (that's what my mother always called it) I attract stuck up, snobby, sticks up their asses, mightier/holier than thou attitude wielding, rich folk for treatment from me.

These rich people believe they are the highest beings on earth and they are the most annoying people I have ever met. Take Ino Yamanaka, stereotypical anorexic model to the stars, she's stuck up, bleach blond, and is the source of the idea that "blonds are stupid" and other blond related lines. I swear she comes in every other week for the smallest problems, from her complexion to why she's having stomach pains because of her "extreme diets." I don't know how many times I have tried in the past to put her on a normal balanced diet, only to fail miserably whenever she threatened to sue the hospital. (The hospital is absolutely torn in-between firing their best worker and sucking up to the star or angering a star and keeping their best worker.)

I feel Ino is one of the few people I have to _blame_ (yes, I feel the need to use the word "blame") for my success. She had been visiting hospitals in order to visit the children and patients in a sick and pathetic attempt to gain even more fame by showing how "thoughtful" and "sympathetic" she was. She had met me through the circumstance that she had fallen down a flight of stairs because of her ridiculously high heels and the fact that the elevators had been full of patients needing to be rushed to different parts of the hospital. She even had had the nerve to say that the idea of an old man having a grand mal epileptic seizure was less important than she getting to her destination on time.

Well, I didn't know how she had escaped breaking a nail or her face or really anything at all after falling down a staircase but she had acted like the world was ending, more likely her career, when she found a bruise and a small bleeding cut on her upper thigh. She had panicked shouting something about how "My thighs are the closest to the cameras when I'm on the runway! They'll see the scar!"

She was then sent to me, because of two reasons, one, the hospital was trying to suck up to her, and two, she had demanded the best treatment and would sue unless she got what she wanted.

Luckily for me she had bodyguards and such to get all of her specific needs, but that still left me with suggesting a scar treatment drug reserved for severe trauma patients with scars, that ended up being more than enough for her tiny two inch cut. She left the hospital praising my work (amazingly she didn't act all snobbish about it) and she's come back ever since. She, being a world famous model and now a designer, began talking about our hospital in every interview she got and attracted even more popular and famous people.

Now these people being famous and that sort of person can't just live by normal standards, which works well enough for the rest of the non-famous world, all come to me. So I have to put up with multiple popular people everyday, forced to suck up to them and everything in every freakin' way!

Another person I'd like to blame for my circumstances is now a good friend of mine, but still nonetheless I blame him for my fame. He was an odd case, sent to me because of my experiences with children, except for the fact that he was a full grown adult that spoke in the third person and was cheerful to the point of driving others in the area insane. I had walked into his room, walked back out again, checked my chart, the room number and patient description repeatedly because of how shocked I had been.

Then after being reassured by an angry co-worker that this was in fact my patient and no, they weren't playing a joke on me, and that no, I hadn't been exposed to any hallucinogens recently, I walked back in. I spent some five minutes in the room with him, asking him questions about his age and so on…

_Flashback_

"_So is there any thing wrong, Uchiha-san?" I asked the 27-year-old sitting contentedly on the hospital bed in a hospital gown._

"_No, Miss Haruno-san. Tobi doesn't think so. Please call Tobi, Tobi, Miss Haruno-san. Tobi does it all the time." He answered happily._

"_So why do you think you were sent to this hospital, Tobi? You can call me Sakura if you'd like." I asked, hoping to find out whether the poor thing was aware of the reason why he had been sent here and if he could tell me that then maybe he could remember if he had been exposed to trauma of some sort. Otherwise I would have to read through his paperwork again more thoroughly to check his history._

"_Tobi was told that Tobi had problems by his friends. So Tobi's friends sent Tobi here."_

"_Tobi, what kind of problems do you think your friends sent you here for?"_

"_Tobi doesn't know Miss Sakura. Tobi was only told that Tobi was a good boss but Tobi's friends were worried about Tobi switching mannerisms."_

_I took a double take. "Switching mannerisms" had been the first phrase he had used that was above the vocabulary of a second grader, and it could mean he had a split personality disorder or similar. He had also mentioned workers and that he was their boss._

"_Do you ever feel as if you have another person in your body or maybe you feel as if you're missing large pieces of memory?"_

"_No, Tobi's is sure Tobi's aware of everything Tobi does." _

_That was understandable, most persons with a split personality disorder were completely oblivious to what their other personalities did and so it made sense that Tobi believed he was in control at all times._

"_So have you ever found yourself at a place you don't remember going to?"_

"_No, Tobi's never had that happen before."_

_Okay, maybe it's not a split personality disorder, because now unless he suddenly switches right now or sometimes during this visit we won't get anywhere. Why don't I just try and clarify his history._

"_Tobi, earlier you mentioned workers calling you "boss," do you work somewhere?"_

"_Yes, Tobi has a job, everyone has a job, Miss Sakura. Just like you have a job working for this hospital, Tobi has created his own widespread police force."_

_I took a moment to take that in. Then I gathered myself and continued questioning Tobi._

_End Flashback_

I eventually found out that Tobi was actually named Uchiha Madara; he just called himself "Tobi" and spoke in third person as a slight call for attention and mainly because his preferences were like that.

His personality was another reason to why his subordinates had begun to worry, on the field he was serious and cold but in the office he was positive and light-hearted. It was rather disturbing to them to watch how he had once gone from shooting down a pedophilic "drug mafia" leader in his home in defense to happy go lucky in less than five seconds.

We kept in touch afterwards and had talks from time to time about how he's now running his own first rate company on the side of his police work. But I blame him because he's made it to the front page quite a few times with either me by his side or he's found someway to mention me in relation to his work in someway or another every time they interview him for the papers. People around the hospital were even convinced we were in a relationship because of the multitude of times we had been caught in pictures together for the front page.

Which now explains why I have now begged for a break from work, they believe me to be the only reason that they're (the hospital top dogs) rich and want to continue to make money by standing on my shoulders to encourage the rest of the work force and public.

After the persuasion required getting out of work for the next few days, I headed over to my favorite dessert shop, the only one in America I am currently aware of, besides Hawaii, that serves dango. I bought the last of their miterashi dango, my favorite, and went home to my modest house, and when I use the term modest, I mean modest compared to everyone else who is chased and has their privacy invaded by interviewers. (Lucky for me, Tobi has worked some legal mumbo jumbo for me and they can't come within 150 yards without being arrested and I love him for it! I had literally tackled him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.)

It's rather big, a few more bedrooms than I will ever need unless I get married and have kids, lots of kids (about 12 or so.) I can already tell that I won't, I have seen what those pregnant women go through, morning sickness (some lucky ones don't), mood swings, miscarriages, back and breast aches, labor… I am definitely not going through with that 12 freaking times! Anyway I don't have my eyes set on anybody yet, but I can tell from the stuck-ups flirting with me, for some accursed reason they have their eyes set on me.

But I was left to my modest home with my desserts, all nice and alone when I realized I would have to reset my alarm and my habits so I wouldn't wake up tomorrow in a hurry to go to work and such.

Then I remembered that I didn't have anything planned to do, it would be nice to be able to relax but sadly I'm not that kind of person. A warm bath could only feel nice for a little while before it became lukewarm and I don't really enjoy the idea of romance novels and chocolate. In fact I don't even believe I have any romance novels…

-Rustle- the bushes from the side of the house were moving, similar to a person pushing them aside to get through.

I had a medium sized forest on the piece of property I owned so it could have been a small animal or something along that line. But this sounded a bit too big to be a forest creature.

_It sounds like Tobi trying to sneak around my house again… I swear that man can smell whenever I have dango from over a mile away. Now if only he would use his actual skills to steal the dango, he might get away with it, but no, he has to stalk me around my property until I leave the dango behind or go inside then he'll come up with the spontaneous excuse that he just wanted to see me._

For once I ask for something exciting or interesting to happen to me, but no, it's only Tobi being an idiot again.

Then a man that definitely wasn't Tobi unless he had suddenly dyed his hair silver and decided to wear a pocketed coat and rabbit ears, burst out of my bushes running towards the forest on the edge of the property.

"Come back here! You're trespassing and I've got an active restraining order against all interviewers and reporters within 150 yards of me!" I yelled at his retreating back as I took off after him, leaving my package of dango behind.

**Sorry for the short chapter. But has anyone ever wondered if you ran after the people you have a restraining order against, which one of you gets in trouble?**

**This is the intro chapter to "Sakura in Wonderland", it is obviously AU and most characters should retain their major characteristics. **

**This story claims no relation to Masashi Kishimoto and his works, nor do I own any rights to his works. … I wish I could get Tobi to work some legal mumbo-jumbo for me… Nor does this story have any intended relations to any other "Alice in Wonderland" related parodies or stories on this site. Exception for the inspiration for the story by Vesper-Chan's one shot "Stupid Rabbit Hole."**

**Please Review!**


	2. Chapter 2

Sakura in WonderlandChapter 2: The Freaking Rabbit Hole

"I said come back here! You are violating a restraining order if you're an interviewer or photographer!" I yelled after the still retreating back, even though it was quite possible he wasn't an interviewer or photographer and it was rather self-centered to immediately assume that the stranger was a photographer or something. In fact he could have been a simple burglar or trespasser with his head in clouds when he accidentally wandered into the property lines.

I began to run at the speeds that had gotten me into the top placing on the high school's track team and soon I had caught up to the man that had been running this entire time.

"I'm late, I'm late, I'll be terribly late." Chanted the oddly dressed man as I came into earshot.

_Great, now I've got a crazy man muttering something about being late for something when he's running for the forest…man, I'm just jumping to conclusions left and right today…_

"Excuse me, can I ask what you're late for? And possibly why you're here?" I asked.

The man didn't seem to hear me or he just ignored me.

"I'll never see my romance novels again at this rate. I can't be late or I might be kicked out…and I don't even have exactly what the King asked for… I definitely won't be in his favor after this."

We had reached the forest and he didn't even slow down, I on the other hand, had to slow down to avoid hitting the trees and branches. Then the man disappeared further into the trees as I began to stop to pull back a branch I couldn't jump over or duck under.

I quickly took after him in the direction he had disappeared into, and soon burst out into a clearing that I knew from previous experiences was located near the center of the forest. I walked into the center of the clearing and then looked around hoping to find the silver haired man. As I reached the center, I narrowly avoided a rather large rabbit hole, almost tripping and breaking my leg in it.

"He couldn't have gone down this, now could he?" I wondered out loud and kneeled down to examine the hole. I considered the idea, the hole was unusually large and deep, and the entrance to it was about the size of a small manhole, it was rather possible. "But what the heck was he talking about when he was repeating something about being late?"

I got up and began to brush the dirt off my pants, silently wondering about the silver-haired man and what he was doing here.

"Kawaii!" Shouted someone from behind me, which surprised me, a second ago I swore there hadn't been anyone there. And then I was plowed over by the force of someone tackling me from behind, or rather "_glomping"_ me.

It all happened rather quickly, from the tackle attack I had stumbled forward into the rabbit hole, and the insides of the rabbit hole were rather like a very slippery slide, it wasn't steep just slippery. As I slid forward at a rapid pace I realized I could turn around and see who my attacker was. I quickly turned around and ignored the odd sensation of sliding backward on my butt at an angle and saw that my attacker had been the silver-haired man from earlier.

_How unexpected, _I thought sarcastically then I realized he was motioning to something behind me. I turned around and saw the path we had been sliding down became a cliff and it dropped down. _My last wishes, Tobi I leave you the house but understand if you touch the dango I __**will**__ come back and haunt you. If I survive this and find out you have touched the dango I __**will**__ kill you._ The cliff was coming closer…

_Last words, I hate you all... _

Then we flew off the slide, and into the gorge below, falling quickly to land who knows where. I was still falling backwards and was silently thankful I was wearing pants.

"Ahhhh!" I screeched as I fell backwards and squinted my eyes shut in terror. I waited silently for the inevitable landing that never came. I opened my eyes to realize that we were drifting downwards but certainly not falling.

"So did you realize we're not falling?" Asked the rabbit man from above me. "Because you nearly made me deaf with that last yell."

"Sorry about that…but I think it's you should be apologizing to me for tackling me into this freaking hole anyway! So I think it's your fault for causing me to scream in your ear!"

"Then let's start over, I am Kakashi Hatake the message runner for the King and advisor to the Queen."

"I'm Sakura Haruno, doctor of general medicines and unwilling worker for parasitic bosses and famous people." I finished rather pathetically, still feeling quite a bit awkward that we were having a conversation like this while freefalling to God-knows-where. "Can I ask you something Hatake-san?"

"You just did, when you asked to ask a question Haruno-san, so go ahead."

"First of all please call me Sakura, I get enough of "Haruno-san this, and Haruno-san that" at work and the occasional "Sakura-chan please?" But I'd like to ask, where does this hole lead to exactly? I mean you acted like it was going somewhere earlier." I suddenly remembered another question I had been meaning to ask. "And why did you call me "cute" earlier?"

"This hole leads to Wonderland. This is an alternate world to yours and a king and queen rule it. Many of us live under the monarchy in various positions across the land. I was out on an errand for the king so that's why I was outside running through what I assume to be your property."

I couldn't help but notice he was avoiding the last question but that wasn't very important, it was probably just a spur of the moment thing. "So what were you sent looking for?"

"Miterashi dango."

"Dango? But there's only-"

"One shop here that sells it. I went there and asked for some of the dango and it turns out they were sold out by a wealthy doctor. The King certainly won't be very pleased by this…"

I felt really guilty.

"I'm sorry."

"There's no reason for you to apologize, it wasn't your fault. It's just that the King is very protective of his favorite food."

"Protective? How?"

"He banished his own cousin for coming near his miterashi dango."

"What do you mean he kicked out and exiled his own family member for coming near his miterashi dango? That's ridiculous!"

"Ah, but it's true...he did exactly that, then he got a restraining order for his food from then on."

"…a restraining order…I have that same problem, though I never did file for that restraining order seeing as my opponent is a part of the law and he could easily override anything I throw at him that's legal or illegal."

"Seems like you're both very similar, though you seem to have a low self esteem."

"What?" I asked shocked to why he would say that.

"You earlier asked why I would call you cute, I see the answer rather clearly and I don't see why you don't."

Feeling uncomfortable with where the conversation was going I quickly blurted out something at random. "I was the one who bought the last of the miterashi dango!"

"Yes I know that already."

Subject change: epic fail. "The ground!"

"What?"

"The ground Kakashi-san! We're about to-"

SMACK!

I landed safely on a conveniently placed bush, Kakashi on the other hand hit the ground right next to it…we hadn't been falling very fast but he still landed with a rather loud noise. I crawled off the bush to see if he was all right, "Are you okay?"

Nope. Out cold. Knocked-out. Unconscious and unaware.

As a doctor I already knew what to do but being in an alternate world I would go for the blunt approach, slapping him, I wanted to do that especially since he seemed disappointed I wasn't wearing a skirt while we were falling.

SMACK

"Who? What? Where? Oh Kami my romance novels will be in Itachi's furnace if I don't hurry up!" Yelled Kakashi, as he ran off.

"You forgot the dango!" I yelled sarcastically at his back. He ran back, grabbed the bag and disappeared in a cloud of dust. "Wow…just wow…what sort of idiot is he? He forgot me in the middle of a place I didn't even know about until this morning!"

…

"Might as well get going to find him… or better yet find a way out!" I muttered to myself as I walked along a dirt path in the direction Kakashi was heading in. I took a long look around, something I hadn't done since I had gotten here and found myself in a forest with scattered wildflowers along the road. It sounded so familiar to a tale Tobi had once told me about, it was so odd that way.

I began walking until I came across a cozy looking house, the front door was open and I saw someone who seemed to be a hired worker on the lawn in front. He seemed to be a bit taller than me and had a long scar across the bridge of his nose. His hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and it stuck out at the top, but he seemed friendly enough to approach.

"Excuse me, sir. Have you seen a rabbit-eared man with spiky silver hair and a pocketed coat run by recently? He might have had a bag of dango in his hand. I was following him," I wasn't sure if that was the word to use but considering he was likely my only ticket out of this place it seemed appropriate.

"Oh you're looking for Hatake-san, aren't you? He happens to live here you know? He ran through his house just a few minutes ago probably to hide some of his "romance novels"," he said this with a roll of his eyes, "from the King before he completes his assignment. By the way, you don't seem as if you're from around here, are you new to Wonderland?"

"Actually I am, you see Kakashi-san had been running across my property and I had never seen him before so I followed after him. He disappeared into the forest on the boundary of the property and then "accidently" pushed me into the rabbit hole I had found. When we landed he seemed to forget about me and ran off in this direction. He seems to be my way out of here so I was wondering where he went."

"Well all you need to do is go through the house and follow the road to find Hatake-san, because that's where he'll be heading."

"Why through the house? Why not around it instead? I'd actually rather not have to disturb his house without his permission."

"Well if you went around it then it would take you in a completely different direction. You just need to follow the hallway to the smallest door and go through the garden from there. But the garden door might have locked itself by now so I'd be careful if I were you."

"Thank you for your help-?"

"Umino Iruka!"

"Thank you Umino-san!"

"No problem!"

I hurried inside the house and soon found the end of the hallway.

Now to look for the smallest door…

"I looked all around and all the doors seemed to be of the same height. But there was one area that seemed to be missing a door. I patted the wall and heard a hollow noise but no sign that it was a actual door. I was about to return to ask Umino-san which door he was talking about when something caught my eye. A small waist height table upon which sat a small vial labeled "drink me", now where have I heard this before I wondered. It sounded vaguely familiar.

To the right of the little vial sat a note.

_Sakura,_

_Take the key from the floor and turn it in the door,_

_drink the vial, and follow the trail through the _

_garden. You should eventually come across the _

_castle and I'll find you there._

_Kakashi_

"He'd better not be wrong about this." I muttered to myself as I picked up the little bottle and took a gulp from it, the thought that Kakashi's lips had drank from this before me darted across my mind before being pushed aside along with the accompanying blush.

The drink burned on it's way down similar to the way alcohol seems to do, but this burn was bad enough to bring tears to my eyes that I couldn't suppress, they just rolled uncontrollably down my face like when you smell a strong onion. I found my self crying and shrinking at the same time, my clothes mysteriously following my size as I shrank. Until my dwindling size came to an abrupt stop, and I found myself treading water in what appeared to be my tears.

I heard a small squeak behind me, and turned in the deep salt-water lake I had unintentionally created to find a red head struggling to stay afloat. He seemed to be suppressing the urge to cry for help but every now and then he would gasp for breath as he was dunked underwater again by a large ripple. But the most recent squeak hadn't been accompanied by a gasp of air, this time I knew something was wrong.

I dove underwater and quickly saw the redhead struggling to make it up for another breath; he started to go limp and then seemed suspended in the water, no longer moving.

I stroked out quickly towards him and placed my arm underneath his in a position meant to keep a drowned victim's head above the water as you swam, and kicked towards the surface as hard as I could. My face broke the surface first and I quickly pulled him up beside me as I turned on my side to stroke towards the ground that seemed to be 20 feet away.

I reached the ground and pulled him up beside me as I checked his vitals.

He wasn't breathing.

I quickly tilted his head back to straighten his windpipe and opened his mouth as I pinched his nose and blew. 3 breaths. 3-5 chest compressions two fingertip lengths down from the sternum. Check vitals again. Still not breathing. 3 breaths. 5 chest compressions. Check vitals again. He still wasn't breathing. I could feel tears welling at the corners of my eyes as I began the steps again with still no response. I barely even knew this guy and he would be the first person I couldn't save. No, I can't give up! I repeated the steps again, no resp- He's breathing! I quickly rolled him onto his side to prevent him from re-swallowing the water he would likely "cough" up.

My patient suddenly started to violently remove the water from his airway as he stood on his hands and knees to balance himself.

A minute later he was able to sit up and leaned against the wall behind us, looking dazed and confused.

"Can you tell me your name, sir?"

"Akasuna no Sasori."

"Are you aware of what just happened to you?"

"Yes, I'm fully aware that I was trying to find my brother before you started tearing up all over the place because you can't handle your alcohol!" He yelled as he turned to face me with an angry twitch his mouse ears.

_Mouse ears?_

I suddenly felt compelled to touch them, to check if they were real. I completely ignored Akasuna-san as I leaned over the brush the tip of one of his ears.

"So cute…"

It twitched under my fingertips as I realized Akasuna-san had suddenly stopped yelling.

I looked down at him and saw his eyes were wide and his face was flushed. It didn't seem to be any symptom of shock like I would have immediately assumed but I leaned in closer to check.

His face turned even redder as he moved backwards towards the wall, away from me.

"Please hold still Akasuna-san, I have to check if you're okay."

He continued to move backwards, as I moved closer.

"Will you stop trying to check up on me already? I'm sure I'm fine!" He shouted at me, the flush quickly disappearing but still some of it remained.

I grabbed Akasuna-san by the chin and held him still. "Akasuna-san I ask that you hold still because I am a certified physician, and I'm trying to make sure you're alright. So will you **please hold still and stop fretting about your personal space issues for once!**" I growled out to him as he stopped.

"Will you just call me Sasori, then? Every time you say "Akasuna-san" in that irritating voice of yours is a another moment I could spend looking for my brother."

"Fine, Sasori-san. You look okay to me, you can go now." I finished coldly, insulted by his impatience and strange attitude.

He got up and quickly headed towards the door to what I assumed was the garden. He seemed to pause for a moment before turning around and gazing at me.

I cocked my head in curiosity to how his behavior had made such a sudden turnaround, one moment he's displaying impatience and attitude and the next he suddenly seems as if he's contemplating saying something.

"Thank you…for fishing me out of the water…I don't know how to swim considering where my brother and I are from. Anyway it's your fault that you cried as you shrunk anyway," he added with a huff and ran outside the door without closing it.

I stood there for a second contemplating what he had said. And my only response was a single twitch from my eye as I headed out the garden door after him.

~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~

**I know, I know, in my other stories I have been making multiple promises to update this but I wasn't exactly sure how Sakura was going to meet Sasori. Now I've worked that out and have started to work on Kimimaru's part as Sakura continues on her way through Wonderland.**

**All I can hope is that this story lives up to Vesper-chan's expectations and all the reviewers' too.**

**I do not own the characters, or the original plot idea, I was inspired by Vesper-chan's oneshot "Stupid Rabbit Hole" to write this and I will continue to do so to the best of my ability and with hopefully renewed vigor.**

**I wrote this at 12:30am please excuse the spelling or grammatical errors that my computer or I haven't caught, I just felt the need to post this as soon as I could. I will fix mistakes later. I may have another one-shot coming out soon, a prequel to "Searching for a Girl."**


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura in Wonderland

Chapter 3: The Hookah, 'Shrooms, and something a bit Furry

Outside of the back door of Kakashi's house was a large garden; or rather what I had originally assumed to be a garden had turned out to be a large forest of unidentifiable plants and flowers. It took awhile for me to realize that I wasn't my normal size but rather only the height of the grass. Without someone to guide me further-

_Sasori had rushed off after I saved him! Is that how you save your rescuer? By hurrying off like you can't stay in the same room as them…Dammit! There I go again being all-selfish again! He said he needed to find his brother, it's not right for me to expect something in return…just what kind of doctor am I?_

I decided to wander along the thinner path of grass that seemed to have a well trodden path through it until I came across another person who might be able to tell me where to go next.

Up ahead was a rather large mushroom with a figure sitting atop it; stunned, I walked around it and realized it was as big as me.

_So which is it? Am I as big as a mushroom or is the mushroom as big as me? I guess it really isn't important what size I am here. But I can't help but wonder…Earlier I had drank the potion and shrunk so am I normal size adjusted to a much larger world or only a few inches tall in a normal sized world?_

A face peeked over the edge of the mushroom. I had forgotten there was a person on top of the mushroom before and he had startled me.

He had dazzling, long, white hair. His hair parting was zigzagged as if he had done it without intent or purpose and long piece hung in his face held there by small gray ring-like clasps. He had either discolored rings around his eyes or he wore makeup. It made his eyes look sunken and eerie. He held a smoking stick, which I later noticed, was actually a hookah.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"You know, it is rather rude to ask for someone's name and not introduce yourself first. So I should be asking who are you?"

"Aren't you simply contradicting what you've just said? Again, who are you?" He insisted without much change in his tone.

I realized he was right, and slowly started to become irritated with the man. He seemed so much like the druggies that would occasionally come into our hospitals. They were always so rude and he seemed to remind me quite easily of them. Hell, the both of them even smoked in people's faces, I realized as he exhaled without turning away.

I glared at him and seeing he was not going to budge or back down, probably too high off whatever he was smoking to really care, I surrendered in hopes of receiving help.

"Okay, I give in. My name is Sakura Haruno, how are you?" My question was met with a heavy silence as he continued to stare at my face. I continued on without faltering at his weighty stare. "Okay, it seems you don't feel like giving your name away, that fine by me. You are entitled to your privacy, but I'd like to ask you whether you know the way out of here."

"Does it matter which way you go to find the exit? There isn't one at the moment…if there isn't an exit there isn't any point in trying to find one."

"What do you mean there isn't an exit? If there's an entrance there has to be an exit! I just came in through a hole and Kakashi got out somehow!"

"Just because you assume there is an entrance and exit doesn't mean there _will_ be one."

"What the hell do you mean? There has to be an exit! If Kakashi got out of this _hellhole_, just to get dango for your King then I'd like to assume I could get out too."

"Kakashi had permission, you don't." He answered while continuing to exhale colored smoke into my face without a care.

_He's not really answering the question…Gah! What is that he's smoking? It's burning my eyes! _

"Well then how do I _get_ permission to leave?" I asked while gritting my teeth against the horrid smell of the exhaled smoke.

"You'd have to go to the castle." Again with the incomplete answers and second hand smoke.

"Damnit! Just give me an actual thorough answer already! And I've had it with you freaking smoking into my _face_!" I yelled as I snatched the pipe from his hand and smothered the fire in the hookah with a small damp handkerchief that I had kept in my pocket from earlier today. It was still damp from my swim in my own tears.

I noticed what I had done and quickly collected myself, I had had a stressful day. I had gone from the hospital to my house, then _this place_. Had I been in the hospital, this would've have been the patient that everyone would pity and as my colleagues had once commented on, previously I was wound up from stress and fatigue and didn't notice I had intimidated a patient, who had provoked me by being particularly defiant about clarifying his medical history, into cowering in the corner. And that patient had had dealings with the Mob. So I needed to remember to calm down, yelling at someone isn't going to help them or you.

I looked up again; he was still staring down at me with seemingly unaffected eyes that seemed to have softened or maybe that was just what I wanted to see.

"Okay, now I realize I shouldn't be yelling at you. You don't have any part in this and you probably don't deserve to have your head bitten off. But could you _please_ help me? I don't even know how I've gotten myself into this mess, one moment I'm running across my property chasing down someone I assumed to be a trespasser, and now that I think about it I'm not even sure why I chased him down. I mean what's the harm in trespassing? He wasn't breaking into my house, or stealing anything. Why did I have to chase him anyway? But I did, I'm normally not that kind of impulsive, yes, I'm moody but not physically impulsive. I just did it."

He seemed to wait for me to continue, as if he knew I needed to vent to someone capable of hearing what I had to say before I could listen to what he would say.

"But now I'm here, being led this way and that, in a place I've never heard of before, nor did I ever know it actually existed. You talk of permission to get out, but I've never been here, I don't know how to obtain permission and all you have to say is "to go to the castle." Won't you please specify where the castle is, or where to go and who to speak to? It's almost as if I'm being forced on a big treasure hunt across a foreign land I've never heard of but it has existed in my backyard for who-knows-how-long?"

I looked up again at him to indicate I was finished, but found he was now leaning down; his eyes now level with mine. Something twitched near my eye and I found it to be one of the pair of fuzzy antennae he had on his head.

"If this is such a hellhole," he began, not in an insulted tone but rather one associated with the statement of a fact. "-Wouldn't you consider the fact that we all might want to get out, but we can't because we all have our roles here, that we can't just leave. There are rules that we are forced to live by, rules that are only to be known to the inhabitants of this land, and you are in fact correct about your impulsiveness. It's associated with the madness you'll quite often encounter here."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"As I said, rules that are meant only to be known by the inhabitants of this land, we have our roles here and now so do you. You'll need to head for the castle," he paused to smile at this, "which is in that direction." He gestured to a point behind him and his mushroom.

I was about to move to leave but he gently grasped my shoulder as I turned to head in that general direction.

"But first you'll need to get to normal size again, and that would require a bit of my help." He pointed to the mushroom he was sitting on. "Eating one side will make you bigger, the other side will make you smaller."

With that last bit of advice he slid off the mushroom with a grace I had never seen in a caterpillar, wait, he was a caterpillar, right? When I had first seen him I hadn't paid attention to his legs, but I was rather sure they hadn't been human legs before. As I took one last look at him, I realized he had already disappeared into the forest without a trace.

"Um…what was that?" I wondered out loud to myself.

"And my name is Kimimaro…" He replied peeking out of the forest one last time.

"What?"

"My name, you asked for it earlier, is Kimimaro." With that he disappeared back into the forest.

"So which side of this mushroom is what I'm looking for?" I asked out loud again, silently hoping that Kimimaro would answer me.

My question was met with utter stillness.

I sighed as I decided just to wing it, since it didn't seem as if I was going to get out of here anytime soon.

_Something rang in the back of my head,_

_Some words of advice I couldn't remember who had said, _

_But the message was clear,_

_As an idea whispered in my ear,_

"_A little of this side, and a little of that side where it dwells,_

_And some experimentation should do you well."_

"Now where had that come from…" I muttered to my self. I looked around for a source to the suggestion that had seemed to come from the blue. It didn't seem likely I would find a source other than some odd reason for spontaneous rhyming thoughts, and even those I wasn't sure what could have been the cause of those.

"But who am I to go against the voices in my head?" I muttered sarcastically, while nibbling on a little piece of either side of the mushroom that I had broken off earlier while the rhyme had echoed through my head.

The voice I was referring to was a…phenomenon… I had met/created in elementary school…Inner-Me, the brash and impulsive personality that I had created as what I could assume to be a comfort mechanism to the lack of friends I had had during elementary school. She had been the one I had talked to while I was bored and she continued to be there for me through high school, often saying irritatingly lewd things about the upperclassmen in the advanced classes I had taken. She had disappeared a few years ago sometime in college; maybe I hadn't the psychological need for her anymore? Maybe I had simply grown up?

I noticed I had grown back to normal size (or at least normal in comparison to the height of the trees) and I had started to walk down a previously unnoticed path without really realizing where I was going. I could only hope I had wandered in the right direction, because I was almost about to run into a tree in the middle of a fork.

"Why was I even thinking that hard about something that was practically a figment of my imagination? Am I mad?"

"Everyone's mad here, ugly. Even I am." Replied a voice that seemed to come from nowhere.

I looked around and saw no one until the voice replied to my active search for its source.

"Up here, ugly."

My eyes followed the sound up the tree I had just previously almost run into. There laid a pale-faced male wearing a rather _odd_ outfit, it was unusually _revealing_ for something worn by a male. The ends of his shirt reached the end of his ribcage, it was loose fitting and was obviously just cut that way instead of being ridiculously small. Speaking of the cut, everything on his person seemed cut oddly. One sleeve was a ¾ length while the other was normal, and his pants sat low enough to reveal more than the average amount of male pelvis.

"It's impolite to stare, you know that ugly?"

Suddenly spurred to action I replied with the not-so-smooth-"Why do you keep on calling me ugly?"

"You have presumably dyed your hair pink, you have green eyes, and you seem to wear red when you know it will clash with your hair and sometimes with your skin while you blush like that." He replied with a twitch of his tail, a feature I hadn't noticed while rudely critiquing the cut of his clothing.

_Do I usually ignore the animalistic features of the men I meet? Kakashi had rabbit ears, Sasori had mouse ears, Kimimaro had antennae…well at least I though he had had antennae they might have disappeared with the maybe-never-there lower half of a caterpillar that may or may have not been there…_

"And are you usually this empty headed?"

"No." I ground out before continuing, "My hair color is natural, too. And the red colors I wear are part of my family's crest."

"I didn't realize people still lived by family crests. I don't even understand why people would want to identify themselves by a color to know you were related to someone."

"I wear it as a reminder…of my family." I replied, expecting another rude comment to come from the male casually sitting up in the tree, so much like the cat that he resembled.

"Then I wouldn't know I've never had a family." He answered in a less empty tone…in fact it sounded a little…envious?

My head snapped back up to look at him, a curious look probably plastered across my face, but this curiosity was based in logic not unlike the factual approach taken by any number of scientists I've known.

"What do you mean you've never had a family?" He could obviously mean that he had never met his parents or relatives, but I had only recently realized that in this place, there didn't seem to be any true families, not with parents or adults to take care of children.

"As in, I have never had a family, I thought I was being rather clear on that, ugly, you seemed to be the intelligent sort."

"And I mean as in, you certainly couldn't have just popped out of nowhere. Into existence from nothing, you know."

"I practically did. That's how the world works here. Role holders and the faceless nobodies that wander the streets of this world, the faceless nobodies are the ones who have families but are easily replaced when something happens to them. But the role holders aren't so different, we're just going to be replaced with another nobody who will be forced to take on our role should we disappear."

"What do you mean, "disappear"?" I was curious as to what he meant by faceless nobodies and role holders, apparently it was some sort of hierarchy here, peasants and nobles. But peasants didn't just come out of nowhere, and they often didn't become nobles out of nowhere either.

"I seriously don't know. One minute I had been living in what I assume to be my house, and the next it was announced to me that I was the Cheshire Cat. I have never been allowed to return to my former position and it leaves me to wonder what had happened to the previous person to be placed in this position. It leaves me to believe he found a way to die."

"You can't die here? And what's stopping you from leaving?"

"Not in the sense I've heard Kakashi speak of in our little chats. Your people leave this world forever, never coming back. We are only reborn again, a different person, no memories, blissfully unaware of the empty life we lived before until it is pressed upon us again, sometimes as a different role, sometimes the same, but we ourselves never know. And there isn't much we can do about leaving, we always end up in the same place we tried to leave from."

"So you're alone?" I asked gently, not really expecting an answer this time.

"Yes."

"You could come with me. Earlier Kimimaro left his mushroom, and I assume that's where he's always been. I had stayed there for a little while and he didn't come back. I'm quite certain whatever is keeping you isn't as strict as you make it out to be if Kimimaro just got up and left."

The cat seemed to lazily but truly consider it for a moment before jumping down from the tree and landing on his feet just like a cat would.

"It's not like I have anything better to do, ugly." He replied before adding, "So where are you headed?"

"The castle. Though I'm not sure whether or not I've been heading in the right direction though…" I answered, unsure of myself.

"Then we'll be going this way." He said pointing a finger towards our right.

"Okay, but what's your name? Mine's Sakura." I said before he could say anything about it being rude about asking for a name from someone without saying your name first. I really didn't want to go through that conversation again, and it seemed this cat was just the type to do that, all the while throwing in casual insults.

"Sakura, hmm? Very unoriginal for someone with pink hair, wouldn't you think ugly? Mine's Sai."

I quietly gritted my teeth and took a deep breath to push down the urge to punch him in the face now that he was within range. I had a feeling that, just like his insults, the urge to punch him wouldn't be leaving soon either.

~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~xxx~

**Okay third chapter done. "Sakura's Inheritance's" chapter has been almost done for a while now so once I cap off the last since it should come up soon too. **

**Please review! Seriously review! It can just be a "Sai's out of character, you suck at writing!" Though I seriously don't want that, but if you do, then _please_ tell me what's wrong with his character before writing/typing that "you suck at writing" part. Even though I haven't received one of those yet…it's still possible.**

**To Vesper-chan, if she still reads this: I do apologize if this story does not meet your standards of quality, but I'm trying and that's all that matters to me. ;-)**


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